ISSN Online: 2165-9389 ISSN Print: 2165-9370
DOI: 10.4236/ojmp.2018.73003 Jul. 5, 2018 27 Open Journal of Medical Psychology
The Importance of Auditory Discrimination in
the Acquisition of Mental Lexicon and Reading
Automation in Arabic-Speaking Students in
Kenitra (Morocco)
Chaouki Sadoussi
1, Ahmed Ahami
1, Abdechahid Loukili
1,2, Khaoula Mammad
1,
Abdessamad Mrabet
11Unit of Clinic and Cognitive Neurosciences and Health, Laboratory of Biology and Health, Department of Biology, Faculty of
Science, University Ibn Tofail, Kenitra, Morocco
2Regional Center for Teaching and Training Professions, Rabat-Sale-Kenitra, Morocco
Abstract
Auditory discrimination is the ability to discriminate between words and sounds. Auditory discrimination can affect reading, spelling and writing. Sev-eral studies examined the correlation between auditory discrimination and reading performance. The aim of this study is to demonstrate the importance of auditory discrimination in the acquisition of mental lexicon and conse-quently the automation of reading in a sample of 101 students in their fourth year of primary education coming from four different schools in Kenitra (Morocco). The results analysis shows that reading scores correlated signifi-cantly with the auditory discrimination scores (r = 0.30, p < 0.01). This proves that the inability to discriminate words causes a disability to store them in the mental lexicon, which makes it difficult to identify these words at a later en-counter. This conclusion is supported by the significant correlation between reading and auditory and visual lexical decision tasks. In this study we were able to emphasize the importance of having good acoustic discrimination ca-pacities for language development. Students who were successful at the audi-tory discrimination task are more successful at reading. A remediation pro-gram based on improving auditory discrimination capacities using the lan-guage assessment battery LABBEL could see reading performance improve-ment in these students.
Keywords
Auditory Discrimination, Reading, LABBEL, Mental Lexicon, Reading Acquisition
How to cite this paper: Sadoussi, C., Ahami, A., Loukili, A., Mammad, K. and Mrabet, A. (2018) The Importance of Au-ditory Discrimination in the Acquisition of Mental Lexicon and Reading Automation in Arabic-Speaking Students in Kenitra (Mo-rocco). Open Journal of Medical Psychology, 7, 27-33.
https://doi.org/10.4236/ojmp.2018.73003
Received: May 21, 2018 Accepted: July 2, 2018 Published: July 5, 2018
Copyright © 2018 by authors and Scientific Research Publishing Inc. This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution International License (CC BY 4.0).
DOI: 10.4236/ojmp.2018.73003 28 Open Journal of Medical Psychology
1. Introduction
Reading is a complex and flexible activity that involves the cognitive arsenal [1]. Several studies have demonstrated the importance of phonological awareness at the beginning of the acquisition of reading [2]. Accessing writing in an alpha-betic system is a complex process that requires the ability to manipulate the phonological components of language. In fact, the initial stages of learning to read are characterized by the establishment of the connection between gra-phemic representations and corresponding phonological representations [3][4]. According to Gombert (1990, 2004), phonological awareness is the ability to identify the phonological components of linguistic units and manipulate them deliberately [5][6]. To recognize a word is not to find that word somewhere in memory, but to recover a certain state of activation of the units which, in the cognitive system, are concerned with the processing of lexical information [7]. Very often, learners who cannot recognize the sound forms of words are con-fronted with orthographic transcription problems [8]. Auditory discrimination is phoneme differentiation and phoneme identification [9]. Our ability to dis-criminate auditory information is directly linked to our learning capacity. A few authors by analyzing auditory discrimination in children with phonological dis-order, have suggested that these children have phonemic discrimination difficul-ties [10][11]. Auditory discrimination can affect reading, spelling and writing, during learning and as word recognition becomes automated. This automation is a mobilization of attentional resources in the service of understanding [8]. Disordered auditory abilities make it impossible to correctly use speech pho-nemes [12]. The aim of this study is to demonstrate the importance of auditory discrimination in the acquisition of mental lexicon and consequently the auto-mation of reading.
2. Materials and Methods
The study involved a sample of 101 students in their fourth year of primary education coming from four different schools in Kenitra (Morocco) aged 9 to 14 years old (mean age = 10.29 ± 1.05). Our sample is composed of 60% boys (n = 61) and 40% girls (n = 40) (Figure 1).
The choice of the fourth year of primary education for this study was based on the assumption that at this level, the students have sufficient skills to perform the different language tasks of the used protocol.
In case of the diagnosis of learning disabilities in these students, who still have two years before their crucial transition to high school, they could benefit from a remediation program.
DOI: 10.4236/ojmp.2018.73003 29 Open Journal of Medical Psychology Figure 1. Students distribution according to gender.
Language Assessment Battery LABBEL
In this study we opted for the use of four activities from the arabic version of the language assessment battery LABBEL [13]. This software (LABBEL) was con-ceived by two neurolinguistic researchers who have used their knowledge of neurolinguistics, psycholinguistics, morphology, phonology and Arabic syntax to develop a battery of tests that takes into account the linguistic characteristics of the Arabic language. The students took the following four tests of the LABBEL battery [14], each test contained 10 items. The score for each test was obtained by subtracting the number of errors from the number of items pre-sented (10 items), thus the score varies between 0 and 10.
Auditory lexical decision: After a presentation of words and non-words in auditory input, the subject must determine if the stimulus is indeed an Arab-ic language word or not.
Visual lexical decision: After a presentation of the written words and non-words, the subject must determine if the stimulus is indeed a word of Arabic language or not.
Auditory discrimination: The subject must determine whether the word pair presented is identical or different.
Complex words reading: The subject must read the words displayed aloud. The statistical analysis was performed using SPSS software.
3. Results and Discussion
The obtained scores in the four activities of the LABBEL battery are shown in
(Table 1), we find a mean score of (8 ± 1.54) in auditory lexical decision, as for
the visual lexical decision the mean score was (8.31 ± 1.76), regarding the audi-tory discrimination mean score was (8.97 ± 1.54), and finally the mean score of complex words reading was (8.55 ± 2.17).
The correlation between the reading score and the visual lexical decision score
(Table 2) shows that students with reading difficulties do not manage to
DOI: 10.4236/ojmp.2018.73003 30 Open Journal of Medical Psychology Table 1. LABBEL battery score means.
Complex words
reading discrimination Auditory Auditory lexical decision Visual lexical decision
Mean 8.55 8.97 8.00 8.31
SD 2.17 1.40 1.54 1.76
Table 2. Correlations between reading, discrimination and lexical decision. Auditory
discrimination Visual lexical decision Complex words
reading p < 0.01 r = 0.30 r = 0.47 p < 0.01
presented, and consequently do not manage to store it in memory to identify it in a later encounter. The mental lexicon is the set of representations corres-ponding to the signifying units of the language [15]. There are three types of re-presentations stored separately: orthographic, semantic and phonological repre-sentations of words [16]. This conclusion is supported by the existence of a cor-relation between the visual and auditory lexical decision (Table 3), which con-firms a lack of mental lexicon since the student could not manage to recognize the words whether the stimulus was visual or auditory. Stanovich (1986) argues that children who fail to reflect upon speech sounds are unable to perform the grapheme-phoneme conversion operations necessary to access the orthographic stage [17][18]. This difficulty of vocabulary acquisition hinders the automation of the reading and causes a slowness in this activity.
[image:4.595.208.540.184.237.2]DOI: 10.4236/ojmp.2018.73003 31 Open Journal of Medical Psychology Table 3. Correlation between auditory and visual lexical decision.
Visual lexical decision
Auditory lexical decision p < 0.01 r = 0.39
conclude that the auditory discrimination score is a good predictor of the read-ing score for our sample. These results are consistent with the El Azmy et al
findings which showed that auditory discrimination is an indicator of the diag-nosis of reading disorders [22]. A remediation program based on the awakening of the necessary discrimination capacities would be beneficial for a good instal-lation of a mental lexicon and the automation of reading, especially that auditory discrimination has been successfully proven as a remediation tool in a sample of Moroccan students [23].
4. Conclusion
The objective of this study was to demonstrate the importance of auditory dis-crimination in the acquisition of mental lexicon and consequently the automa-tion of reading in a sample of 101 students in their fourth year of primary educa-tion coming from four different schools in Kenitra (Morocco). After analyzing the results, we were able to emphasize the importance of having good acoustic discrimination capacities for language development. Students who were suc-cessful at the auditory discrimination task are more sucsuc-cessful at reading. A re-mediation program based on improving auditory discrimination capacities using the language assessment battery LABBEL could see reading performance im-provement in these students.
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